Greening Sekondi-Takoradi Public-Private Partnerships

Box 3: Take home lessons from Oil and Gas Study Tour • Urgent need to strengthen the fishermen’s associations in Ghana to enable them engage effectively with the petroleum sector. Their Associations should be targeted for capacity strengthening programmes on oil and gas advocacy, oil spill monitoring, detection and cleaning • Civil society organizations in Ghana must form district, regional and national level platforms to promote pro-poor policies for the oil sector and engage continuously with petroleum sector actors to address concerns of the wider civil society, including fisher folks, oil host communities, etc • Before the production of Ghana’s first oil, there is the need to enact other laws on, for example, oil pollution, coastal environmental policy, damage claim policy and procedure, clean air and clean water acts, marine mammals protection and endangered species, ocean dumping, etc. to protect people and the environment • Need to set up emergency fund to clean any oil spill and consider compensation packages to other sea users and coastal communities • The role of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation GNPC as both a regulator and an oil company is conflicting; for this reason, the Petroleum Regulatory Authority bill that splits the functions of GNPC is laudable and must be commended. • Ghana’s only two petroleum laws, PNDC Law 64 84, are inadequate for managing the new petroleum potential. New laws must address the inadequacies. • There is a need to establish an agency responsible for coastal zone management CZM and develop CZM laws; Ghana has no direct agency responsible for CZM. At present this responsibility is shared between Coastal District Assemblies, the EPA, the Fisheries Commission, the Ghana Maritime Authority, etc.

3.4 Communications of Program

3.4.1 Consultative Dialogue

An informal consultative dialogue with stakeholders was held in Accra on February 26, 2010 to introduce the ICFG and to foster buy-in to the Initiative for policy advocacy. It was also a forum for the stakeholders to share their experiences and lessons learned in the execution of various projects. Representatives of FoN, GCLME, GEF, the Attorney-Generals Department, TESCODFisheries Alliance, and the Ministry of Environment Science and Technology MEST attended. 27